15 March 2009

"Since September 2007, all UK schools have had a statutory responsibility to promote the wellbeing of their pupils."

Normally this is where I hold Britain up as an example of how not to do crap and how to demoralize and stupidify a nation, but all this self esteem nonsense has been pretty much standard procedure within our school systems for more than a decade as well.

This is just one psychologist calling this nonsense, nonsense, so hard to know if Dr. Carol Craig's words at a conference of headteachers will cause any ripples, but one can hope that maybe her words will resonate both in Britain and here in the United States.

It makes sense that if all you do is praise children, they will turn out to be narcissistic little monsters incapable to deal with even the slightest setback. Teachers aren't doing any favors to their students by not demanding some accountability from their charges. Good parents fight this self esteem nonsense, not by belittling their little ones, but by being honest with them, and heaping praise only when praiseworthy their progeny have accomplished something worth the praise.

Schools aren't alone in turning out narcissistic monsters, but they shouldn't be in the business to counter good parenting and reinforce bad parenting, and right now, that's the way most public schools are set up.

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